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The Monuments Men (2014) How do you end up making a movie with a cast and premise this
good so goddamn boring? I had hopes for The
Monuments Men, based on both those good solid reasons; it was in my films
to see for both 2013 and this year, even though I should have heeded the
warning signs when the release date was delayed. After all, it couldn’t be
anything but at very least entertaining. Could it? Unfortunately this is George
Clooney the director in complete disarray, clueless over to how to string a
plot together (with co-writer and frequent collaborator Grant Heslov) and inept
at introducing any kind of pace, urgency or drama into his filmmaking. He’s not
even that endearing in his familiar anchoring star turn.

He and Heslov previously teamed on Good Night, and Good Luck and The
Ides of March, both buoyed somewhat by having a politically invested Clooney
(even if his points are relatively soft
and familiar ones). Heslov also directed Gorgeous George in the oft chastised
but actually…

The Iceman (2012) It says
something that Michael Shannon’s most sympathetic role in ages finds him
playing a notorious hit man. Both in terms of typecasting and the favourable view
director/co-writer Ariel Vromen takes of his subject. Those familiar with the
case have found much to fault in this account of Richard Kuklinski’s
activities, both factually and with regard to characterisation. But, leaving
aside concerns over authenticity for a moment, this is a well-crafted,
well-performed and engrossing piece of work. Having just witnessed the OTT
glorification of all things ‘70s in American
Hustle, The Iceman is refreshingly
low key in its milieu. Instead, it’s the succession of sometimes spuriously recognisable
faces popping up in a string of cameos that proves a sometimes distracting experience
(a scenario that was likely all about favours and financing).

The end
credits of the movie announce that it is based on The Iceman: The True Story of a Cold-Blooded Killer by Anthony
Bruno and th…

Beautiful Creatures (2013) Another week, another failed Young Adult adaptation. This
one floundered on its release about this time last year and it’s easy to see
why. Possessed of the Southern flavour flaunted by True Blood, but without the libido, Beautiful Creatures is entirely mechanical in its construction of a
supernatural world where teenagers both mortal and immortal (see Twilight) interact in a post-Whedon
landscape of chosen ones and dark destinies. Richard La Gravenese, who made a
splash early in his career with The
Fisher King for Terry Gilliam, does his best on scripting and megaphone
duties, but he’s unable to wring out anything very memorable.

The movie starts reasonably well though, and unlike many a
YA picture, La Gravenese has managed to attract a supporting cast of colourful
thesps who, when they’re occasionally granted a scene to themselves (as is more
common during the first half) dispel the overpowering odour of the rather
insipid love story. That’s not to diminish t…

True Detective 1.6: Haunted House The far-out theorising of the fifth episode (probably my favourite so far) is all but jettisoned as True Detective is brought back down to earth with a thud and a bump and a grind in Haunted House. It’s a definite and intentional pullback from the investigation side (barring a couple of scenes, and one especially memorable one), which tidies the hedgerows and brings the narrative fully up-to-date. And it serves to really cement that this is all about the decaying lives of the detectives at its centre; the solving of the crime needs to pay-off satisfyingly to justify not being a high class variant on The Mentalist’s progressively less-and-less satisfying Red John arc, but it’s the reverberations in the lives of Rust and Marty that really count. And once it’s over the great scenes filter back into the mind; Rust’s interrogation of the murderous mother, his encounter with Tuttle, the most stunning scene of the episode between him and Maggie (that soundtrac…